Political Dig

Trump Just Linked Democrats To MS-13 In Bizarre Tweet Defending His Immigration Policy

President Trump fired off a bizarre tweet on Wednesday linking Congressional Democrats to the MS-13 gang, claiming the two are the primary opponents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“The two biggest opponents of ICE in America today are the Democratic Party and MS-13!” Trump tweeted.

Some progressive Democrats have called to “abolish ICE” and repurpose the agency to its original mission following increasing public outcry over the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that resulted in the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents.

Trump has lambasted Democrats’ calls to eliminate the agency and continually stokes fears over MS-13, a gang that has held steady at around 10,000 members in the U.S. for the past ten years. Its members are concentrated in a few U.S. cities.

The presidentTrump’s inflammatory rhetoric that MS-13 members are “infesting” the U.S. is successfully frightening his base. An overwhelming majority of Trump voters told pollsters they see MS-13 as a threat to the United States.

Trump often evokes MS-13 as a rationale for his hard-line immigration policies, although a majority of immigrants from Central America are fleeing gang violence rather than participating in it, according to a report by ProPublica.

Read Trump’s tweet below.

The two biggest opponents of ICE in America today are the Democratic Party and MS-13!